a castle in the snow
by Miss Arya Silvertongue
Summary: Jon and Arya meet again at the end of the world. (Gospel of the North series Part 1)


_Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle._

* * *

i.

When Jon falls, there's an apology and a prayer in his lips.

The apology is for his dead father, who perished so far from home. He begs pardon for his sullied honor, and for still wanting so much, when the gift of life should have been more than enough. More than he deserved.

It is also for his nameless mother, and whatever dreams she may have had for him. They will all die with him now, buried in the snow.

The apology is for his men, those who marched with him and those whose blades are now stained with his lifeblood. They all believed in him, in their own ways. And they will soon die for it, not long after he does.

_For the Watch!_

It is for his little sister.

To Arya, who loved him best, he asks for forgiveness. He can't come to her now, no matter how much he wills his frozen legs to move. He was always bound to fail the people he loves most, and this time is no different.

So he prays.

He prays to the old gods of his home, the gods of his father. He prays that his sister makes it out of Winterfell's walls, out of Ramsay Bolton's grasp. He prays she reaches the Wall, so that she may know he tried. He tried to get to her.

To the rivers of his youth, to the trees and to the birds, he prays.

In the abyss he finds himself drowning in, Jon's prayer is heard by one.

* * *

ii.

There's something pulsing at the center of Jon, something far stronger than rage.

_She was never there._

He is drenched in blood, his whole body shaking from the monstrous force that is gnawing at his bones. A few more steps, and he'll reach Bolton, who is standing in the middle of the courtyard, in the very castle where he grew up. He watches his fellow bastard, grinning and mocking, and whatever it is inside Jon snaps.

_It was never Arya. I'm sorry, Jon. She was never there._

"I think that sounds like a wonderful idea," Ramsay declares, and Jon decides he's had enough.

He drops his sword and goes for the shield. _One_. _Two_. _Three_. The wood catches the arrows, each one a closer hit than the other, but Jon barely notices them. He is charging, relentless, and before Bolton can draw a fourth, he knocks him down with two swift blows. As soon as he's on the ground, Jon finds it near impossible to stop.

_It's Jeyne. Vayon's girl._

_I'm sorry, Snow. They told me it was her._

_I didn't_ _— I had to, Jon. I had to. Please…please don't kill me._

_He— he did things to her, things I—_

_Aye. It seems your sister's name was the only thing that kept her alive. Wasn't much difference, from what I can gather._

_Crazy bastard believed she was the Stark girl. Never questioned it._

_She was never there._

"Jon!"

Theon's shout breaks him out of his daze, and all the red that flooded his vision washes away, until the only red that is left is the blood on his hands. A small and distant part of Jon realizes that it's the first time he hears Greyjoy's voice since he saw him again. It's his real voice, the one from their youth, not the weak and whispery sound that comes out of his mouth every time he speaks to Jon, always pleading, always begging for forgiveness.

Behind him is Stannis Baratheon, bleeding and leaning much of his weight on his priestess. The king looks as though he is barely seeing his surroundings and Melisandre, her hair a mess but her face still so beautiful, watches Jon with something close to horror in her eyes.

_How dare you_, Jon wants to scream at her. _You made me this way. I am the monster you created._

* * *

iii.

It's been a fortnight since they retake Winterfell when Stannis Baratheon dies.

The king has succumbed to his wounds, and Melisandre, desperate and confused perhaps for the first time since Jon has met her, lashes out when he stops her from what looked like an attempt to step into the flames she's spent a lifetime worshipping.

"Why you?" she thunders. "What could he _possibly_ see in you?"

And because Jon cannot give her an answer, he leaves her to weep next to the freezing flesh of her king.

The next night, after a raven from Castle Black tells him that Selyse has taken her own life upon learning the death of his husband, Maege Mormont and Howland Reed arrive at Winterfell.

Three days later, Jon is named King in the North.

* * *

iv.

"Your Grace."

Jon doesn't have to turn to know it's Sam who just entered his chambers, the one that used to belong to the Lord and Lady of Winterfell.

"Remember what I told you the last time?" He fixes his friend what he hopes is a kingly glare. "If you call me that again, you'll regret it."

It's a jape; Sam would know it's a jape, but the look on his face gives Jon pause. "Sam?"

"…It's your sister."

Jon knows what's like for a heart to stop. He truly does. It has happened to him already, on a cold winter night.

"She's accompanied by five other riders. They reached the gate just moments ago."

It takes Sam moving forward for Jon to realize that he is swaying. When he feels his friend's hands on his shoulders, he looks up and finally understands why the look on Sam's face doesn't belong with such a news.

It's still far too late, however, for hope has already allowed itself to take root. It crumbles just as quickly.

"Which sister?" he asks him, but Jon need not wait for an answer.

Because he also knows what it's like to have his heart beat again, when there doesn't seem to be any reason left for it to do so. It has happened to him countless times, after all.

* * *

v.

The night before he rides for Dragonstone, Jon finds himself walking along the parapet above what used to be the glass garden, waiting for exhaustion to win over his nerves.

From his place, he can see most of Winterfell, and it's one of the times he is reminded of just how much has happened to his home. He has long forgiven Theon, but nothing can ever change the fact that his mistake had cost them their home, and it had almost killed their brothers.

"No one fights harder than a man who fights for home."

He doesn't jump, but Jon has to swallow a gasp when he sees Bran wheeling towards him.

"Bran, I—" It takes Jon a while to catch his breath. "I didn't hear you."

Bran, for his part, simply nods and turns his gaze to the Wolfswood.

"It is easier to be light on your feet when your feet cannot touch the ground."

His words are full of meaning, full of _longing_, that Jon knows he is speaking to Brandon his brother, and not the Winged Wolf. It's been over a moon since he returned to them, only a handful of days after Davos himself returned with little Rickon, but the days leading up to word of the Mother of Dragons has been the hardest for the people in Winterfell. The closer they come to what they know will be a battle for life itself, the stronger his brother's visions become. The deeper Bran goes, the harder it is for them to pull him out.

And Jon refuses to lose anyone else.

"Do you think she'll help, this Dragon Queen?"

It takes Bran a while to respond, always too careful of what he can and cannot say. It makes Jon miss the little brother he knows, who was quick to smile and could not keep a secret to save his life. But the thought is too close to memories that can shatter him, so Jon shakes it away and waits for Bran to speak.

"She has to."

His brother's voice is resolute, but there is something delicate in it, too. A reluctance to believe otherwise, and it is so human, so _Bran_, that Jon finds himself compelled to ask the one thing he has wanted to ask since the moment he's learned of his brother's gifts.

_Tell me. Please, brother._

But before Jon can breathe life to any plea, Bran's face morphs into a warning. It is not hard, nor foreboding. Simply cautious. _Careful_, the face seems to say. _Be very sure_.

Because if Bran tells him she is alive, there is nothing in the seven kingdoms that can stop him from going to her. There simply isn't. He will take off, to whichever road leads to her, and he will damn the world for it.

And if he tells him that she is gone, that she has died because he wasn't there to protect her, then the gods may as well tear the Wall down themselves, because Jon will be as good as someone with no home left to fight for.

* * *

vi.

As soon as Jon succeeds in convincing Daenerys Targaryen to give him her dragonglass and her support, a raven from Sansa tells him Bran has not woken in days. He sets to ride for home the morning after.

"You promised you wouldn't kill her," he tells Daenerys, as she readies her own men to march for King's Landing. She also got a raven that morning, from her Hand. Jon still finds it difficult to believe that the Imp who was once his friend is now right hand to a Targaryen Monarch. But Tyrion is the Hand of the Queen and Jon is the King in the North, and the message Tyrion sent Dany turned the vigilant yet regal queen into a creature not unlike her terrifying children.

"She holds one of my people prisoner."

Fortunately, Tyrion and the rest of the envoy she sent to treat with Cersei Lannister are unharmed. Only one, apparently a vital member of Daenerys Targaryen's court, was captured by gold cloaks.

"We need Cersei," Jon reminds the queen. "We need her army if we want a chance to defeat the dead."

"I don't care."

"_Dany_." It hasn't been long since he started addressing her by a more familiar name, but Jon has come to know the woman in the time they've spent on the island. She is a good queen. "A squabble over crowns and titles is the last thing we need. It would not matter who sits on that damned throne when the dead rules us all."

His words seem to take effect, as some of the rage in Dany's purple eyes dissipate.

"I know," she tells him, her voice taking a softer tone. "I will be…reasonable."

It is the best Jon can hope for, but before he can mount his horse, he hears her speak again.

"But the woman she holds captive is very dear to me."

When she tells her this, something in her words resonate with Jon. She looks at him with such…_meaning_, and Jon feels as though he is missing something very significant. Behind her, Missandei looks much the same.

_You know nothing, Jon Snow._

"And if she dies?"

The promise in her eyes, however, is something he is intimately familiar with.

"Fire and blood."

* * *

vii.

There is no time for Jon to dwell on their victory.

There's no time to bask in the overwhelming relief at the sound of countless undead bodies dropping to the ground, at the realization that he is still breathing, still _alive_, when all he wants to do is go to his siblings.

_Not siblings, no. Cousins._

When his legs take him to the godswood, it doesn't seem soon enough.

"Bran? Theon?" Shards of ice everywhere, a testament to something that has not quite sunk in. "Bran!"

He may have ran, or his steps may have staggered, but either would still not have prepared him for what is waiting for him beneath the great weirwood tree.

"…Jon?"

She is beautiful.

Far taller than he remembers, hair longer than he recalls. She is dressed in all black leather, and her face all sharp edges, but it's still her. Still his little sister.

"Arya."

It takes a great amount of will to break from her gaze and stare at Bran, pleading with him for a sign that he is not dead, or simply dreaming. When Bran nods, Jon lets his eyes drift back to the woman before him.

"How?" he breathes.

_How are you here? How are you alive when everyone else keeps telling me you're not? How have I not found you?_

Arya, however, takes it for an entirely different question. She lifts a dagger Jon did not realize she was holding, and shrugs at the carnage around them.

When she looks at him again, all the mischief and affection he remembers clear as day is bright in her grey, Stark eyes. His eyes.

"Stick 'em with the pointy end."

It's the last thing Jon hears before the world fades away, and the only thing he sees is Arya's eyes shuttering, and her body going limp as it falls right into his shaking arms.

* * *

/end


End file.
